Library Home: Gender & Sexual Diversity Education Resources: Beyond the binary

Definition and use of "gender" has changed over time.

“Sex is between the legs; gender is between the ears.”
- Virginia Prince, transgender activist

Food for thought: Sex is between the legs, gender is between the ears, ... and sometimes how that comes together does not match expectations. When expectations are not met, cognitive dissonance may occur. A challenge to one's worldview can be upsetting, but sometimes leads to a paradigm-shift.

Etymology and usage of "gender"
Grammatical Gender: At first, in English, gender was only referring to classifying nouns. From this link: "In 1926, Fowler's Modern English Usage suggested that “gender...is a grammatical term only.”
Wikipedia:Gender - crowd sourced discussion of the term's evolution in meaning and use. "In popularized and scientifically debased usage, sex is what you are biologically; gender is what you become socially; gender identity is your own sense or conviction of maleness or femaleness; and gender role is the cultural stereotype of what is masculine and feminine."
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"Causality ... is sub-divisible into genetic, prenatal hormonal, postnatal social, and post-pubertal hormonal determinants, but there is, as yet, no comprehensive and detailed theory of causality. Gender coding in the brain is bipolar. In gender identity disorder, there is discordance between the natal sex of one's external genitalia and the brain coding of one's gender as masculine or feminine."
Social Gender "Globally, communities interpret biological differences between men and women to create a set of social expectations that define the behaviors that are "appropriate" for men and women and determine women’s and men’s different access to rights, resources, [and] power in society, and even health behaviors."

Gender is a social construct because it is defined by social consensus. Challenges arise when socially constructed limits or stereotypes are used to determine who should get more or less access to rights, resources, and power.

Populations identifying as non-binary are increasing:

StatPearls: Gender Dysphoria (Last Update: July 11, 2023.)
According to a recent national survey, 1.4 million individuals (0.6%) in the United States identify as transgender.
LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%
LGBT identification up from 5.6% in 2020
One in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBT
Bisexual identification is most common

Continuing Evolution of Gender

cis - same side - Male sex & male gender or Female sex & female gender
trans - opposite side - Male sex & female gender or Female sex and male gender